The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
Typically, child safety seats are seats designed specifically to protect children from injury or death during collisions. Automobile manufacturers may integrate child safety seats directly into their vehicle's design. Most commonly, these seats are purchased and installed by consumers. The seats looks like normal adult seats, but often have a few extra restraining bars and padding positioned throughout. This is often necessary since the child does not have full muscle control yet.
It is known that infants typically cannot sit on their own, unaided. A number of support seats and cushions have been devised to help infants remain upright in a seated position. These designs typically lack the quality of 360° support, thus causing the infant to slump, slide down onto their back, or tip forwards or sideways out of the seat or cushion. Also, some of these and similar designs lack the quality of design that prevents an infant of wiggling out of the seat due to arching their backs or using their legs to maneuver themselves out of the seat.
However, some of these designs have been recalled due to safety concerns and lawsuits, and seat belts have been added to solve this problem, but it can still be difficult to put the infant in the seat without the seat belt clip pinching the infant's thighs and the low position of the seat belt renders it almost useless. There is still also the risk the infant can tip the seat over due to the seats flawed design, even while connected to the seat with a seat belt.
A seat belt added to fix this problem can still be dangerous due to pinching of the infant's legs from the seat belt clip and the fact that the flawed seat design can still allow the infant to use its own weight to tip the seat over while connected to the seat. The seatbelt is also complicated to fasten and requires lifting a heavy child safety seat to access the free ends of the seat belt.
Other proposals have involved child safety seats. The problem with these devices is that they do not prevent a child from squirming out and can tip over when the child moves excessively.
Thus, an unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies. Even though the above cited methods for a child support seat or cushion meets some of the needs of the market, a chair or cushion that has sufficient padding and volume to restrict excessive movement by an infant, yet still enable functional movement is still desired.